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He watches as Ed lazily tucks one end of the tie into the knot. He’s got pretty new lines under his eyes when he squints, the age suiting him more than it does Oswald. He’s as deft as ever, making short and easy work of the task that seems endlessly impossible to Oswald. He pinches just beneath the knot and readjusts the tie to a more appealing length. Then, he fiddles the ends, makes sure the small end is truly hidden, and readjusts himself to his full height.
“Does it ever bother you?” Oswald asks, pulling down his popped collar. Ed stares at him for a moment.
“Doing your tie? No. Does it bother you?”
“Of course it does,” Oswald says. He looks away. “I want to be able to do it.”
“I’ve showed you how.”
“But I still can’t do it!”
“It’s just a tie.”
Oswald’s eyes train down to his hands, scarred and lined, as useless as ever. He clenches them into fists, hates the resistance in his muscles, hates how much they never listen to him. Oswald knows what to do with them, but the thoughts get lost somewhere in his body, and the electricity sent to do something as simple as write gets lost in the midsts of things. It’s not just his tie, he frowns. It’ll never be just his tie.
He doesn’t know why. He hates that he doesn’t know why. He wants to know why so he can fix it and finally do things by himself that he should at this ripe old age. He can’t rely on Ed to dress him when he’s struggling with the buckle of his belt, can’t rely on Ed to help him finish a ransom note because he simply cannot hold the pen properly, can’t rely on Ed to finish any of his work because it just tires some deep rooted part of his muscles too much.
He can’t rely on Ed, though he doesn’t stop him when he gets Oswald’s monocle for him, laying neatly in its box on top of his bedside table. This, he can do without much restraint. Though, if he doesn’t angle it correctly the first few times, his arm does start to tire. Which, he supposes is a natural response, but he still doesn’t like it. Thankfully, though, he doesn’t have to worry about it. He fixes it by his eye perfectly the first time.
“How do I look?” He asks after a few minutes of silence, hands absently grabbing the fabric around his neck. Ed lightly takes his wrists away from the tie.
“As dashing as ever, Oswald,” Ed says and fidgets with his jacket in a way that he doesn’t quite need to. But the touch is appreciated nonetheless. “I promise you, it’s alright.”
“What?”
“If you can’t tie a tie, that’s alright. You can’t be good at everything.”
“Unlike yourself.”
“Well, obviously. But please, don’t beat yourself up over it.”
“It’s not that, not entirely,” Oswald says then pauses. He’s struggling to find what to say. How can he get the right words out? He knows what he wants to, but there’s a barrier between that and what he knows his mouth will inevitably say. He swallows thickly. “I think… I struggle with too many simple things. It’s rather stupid.”
“Not really,” Ed says. He bites his lip before he breathes out and grabs his bowler out from the closet. With his back to him, Oswald lets his face drop into something more solemn. He doesn’t want Ed to get too into trying to comfort him. “What’s stupid about it? You? No, certainly not.”
Oswald thinks on it. It’s not an answer he disagrees with, but he can’t find the way to explain that he never thought that. He just thinks that the lack of any fine motor skills is something he should have been able to overcome by the time he turned five. Hell, he couldn’t even tie his own shoes until he hit fourteen. That sometimes stings harder than the unassuming accessories that Ed has lined up for him in the third drawer of his dresser.
“Do you think there’s something wrong with me?” He asks before he can even stop himself. Ed flinches, Oswald can tell even facing away, before swivelling around and grabbing both of Oswald’s shoulders with such a firm grasp that it would’ve startled him if he hadn’t known the Riddler’s true power. Their eyes lock before Oswald’s flicker away.
“There’s something ‘wrong’ with both of us, but this?” Ed pulls away one hand to gesture vaguely. “This sort of thing simply doesn’t enter the equation.”
“Even if-“
“Is there something wrong with me when I get lost with social cues, Oswald?”
“What? Of course not! Why would you even suggest that?”
“It’s the same sort of thing,” Ed says with a light smile. He relaxes his hold on Oswald and presses himself up in a hug loose enough to not disrupt the artistry of their meticulous dress. “You’re fine the way you are.”
“I still hate it,” Oswald mutters with defeat into Ed’s green fabric. The arms around him are familiar, safe, but he doesn’t feel better. “Don’t try to tell me otherwise.”
“I won’t. It’s hard for you, I get it. And while I want you to know that it makes you no less of a person because you struggle with certain things, I understand how you feel,” Ed says, his breath tickling the yet-to-be-styled tufts of black hair upon Oswald’s head. The words settle in his chest and he folds himself deeper into the hug, not caring about the state their clothes will be in afterwards. Ed breaths out a startled ‘oh’ as if in sudden understanding, and grasps Oswald just as tightly in return.
They stand together for a few minutes before Ed pulls away. He’s wearing a wary smile and Oswald wants to kiss it off of him, but he’s well aware that sudden change might not be helpful for either of them. Ed takes one of his hands and raises it before his lips, however, and lightly holds it against them for half a minute. Oswald smiles at him, genuinely and fully.
“They’re no good,” he says, waggling his fingers against Ed’s chin. He still holds his wrist by his face, manoeuvring it to press his palm against his cheek. The stretched arm hurts, tires, but Oswald stomachs it for this. Would stomach anything for Ed. “They can’t do anything right. They truly are terrible things.”
“They’re good enough for me,” Ed says.
“Even if they can’t tie a tie?”
“Even so. I like doing your ties for you, Oswald,” Ed says and smoothes out any creases upon both of their persons after their hug.
“Why?”
“No, it’s quite selfish.”
“Tell me, Ed.”
“It’s the intimacy of it, isn’t it?”
Oswald pauses. Then he relaxes all the tension building in his shoulders, disregards what Ed is expertly trying to do, and folds himself back against the man he loves. Ed stumbles past a gasp before he clings on to him once more. He lets the much more able hands along his neck rub circles in a way he knows would melt him into a puddle if they didn’t have places to be. Eventually, though. They can stay here for a while.
He grabs a handful of the back of Ed’s punctuation patterned jacket in each hand and releases it. The stress hurts his fingers, and while he sighs, he lets the fact remain without anger or despair building in his stomach at the thought. He almost achingly flattens the creases back against Ed’s spine. Ed, beautiful and perfect and so smart, and so willing to accept every part of Oswald that even he struggles with.
“They’re good enough for you,” Oswald repeats. He can hear Ed’s lips splitting into a grin.
“Of course they are. I love every part of you, Oswald.”
And Oswald, for now, as much as he still wants to tear off the appendages and find any replacement that can knot the ties himself, can live with that. If Ed can love him, despite what he sees as his faults, then maybe Oswald can learn to do so too.